Waking up at 2 AM definitely is not the ideal start, but it was necessary to get to our 6 AM flight to Miami. With sleep lacking for all of us, we journeyed through the airport and finally made it onto the plane. Touching down in Miami, we faced the realization that we had an 8 hour layover, so what better to do then make the travel all the way to South Beach to enjoy the great Miami sun. After this little side trip, we made our way back to the Miami airport to prepare for our flight to the great city of Quito, Ecuador. Landing in at 9 PM and finally getting back to our hotel at 10 PM, there really wasn’t much else to do that day except sleep in the San Francisco de Quito hotel.
On the first day actually day in Ecuador, we woke up at 8 AM for some good breakfast and discussed our plans for the day. We ventured out into Iglesia de San Francisco, one oldest churches in South America, and witnessed a church sermon. After this, we went on a tour to the Museo Francisco to learn about the religious background of the city and just how important religion is to the city. Once the tour was over, our whole group tried tiny coconuts that tasted exactly like coconuts.
During the tour, Rohan (The Lion) proposed the idea of hiking up the mountain of the Virgen del Panecillo as no Plus3 Ecuador students have ever done it before. I agreed to the idea and convinced Meg (The Llama) to join us on this treacherous journey. Despite many push backs, we kept going with the idea and eventually began our ascent of the mountain. The first 400 steps were a bit brutal as it left all of us a bit out of breath due to the thinner air of the high elevation of Quito, but we decided to take the longer way to avoid a sketchy route which allowed us to easily make it to the top. Once at the top, we basked in our accomplishment and took pictures to prove we made it. After taking pictures all around the top of the mountain, we looked around for empanadas, but to our disappointment, there were no empanadas for us to eat. This disappointment led us back down the mountain, taking the previously sketchy route as we were determined to make it back to the hotel. We made a quick pit stop for food when Rohan had to buy his already previously bought water again. No convincing worked, and he learned to not bring his already bought water back into the same store again. Quite the first day in Quito, and I can’t wait for the next opportunities that arise for us over these next two weeks.
